Logging on to the leprechauns

Making green mashed potato and faking leprechaun footprints - nowhere is St Patrick's Day celebrated quite like the US. Rosita Boland browses the blarney.

The World Wide Web is a window on the world, but you wouldn't want to be relying on it to get your facts straight about St Patrick. Tap "St Patrick's Day" into Google and discover how, like Chinese whispers, facts can get wildly distorted when they're repeated often enough.

Unsurprisingly, with an estimated 42 million Americans of Irish ancestry, the majority of the sites returned under this search are based in the US.

The education site, www.lessonplanspage.com, lists St Patrick's Day activities. Alongside this is a potted history of who St Patrick is.

Among other things, we read, "St Patrick was a caring person and did many nice things for the people of Ireland . . . Corned beef and cabbage is a favourite meal on St Patrick's Day . . . There are legends that go along with St Patrick's Day. A popular legend is about the leprechaun. Leprechauns are tiny people dressed in green and they collect pots of gold . . . The Irish are very thankful on this day because St Patrick taught them how to read and write."

It's quite difficult to get away from our old friend the leprechaun, who seems to have emigrated long ago and is busy growing and multiplying his clan on the shores of Amerikay. So just what is a leprechaun?

On www.tailormademysteries.com, we read, "In Irish folklore, a leprechaun is a little sprite or goblin. Sometimes ordinary Irish men and women are also called leprechauns."

On www.geocities.com, under "St Patrick's Day Activity Ideas", we find, "On St Patrick's Day the leprechaun is very mischievous. He upsets chairs while children are outside playing, walks through the Jell-O and dyes the mashed potatoes light green. To help keep him out of mischief we make leprechaun ladders for him to play on. Hang from ceiling or windows."

It's not just the children who are encouraged to have fun with our emigrant leprechauns. On a website which offers tips for making your home life more romantic, www.theromantic.com, people have submitted stories about March 17th. This one is from Bridget Moran: "Last year for St Patty's Day I took some washable green food colouring and left leprechaun footprints all over the kitchen. You can use a small foot stencil or just make a fist and use the pinky side of your hand to stamp out the footprints. I made it look like a little leprechaun walked all over our floors, walls, counter tops and even across a cake I left on the counter. The 'leprechaun' left a sweet little message and a little gift wrapped in gold foil for my husband and children. It was a lot of fun and my husband and children absolutely loved it."

She doesn't say who cleared up all those pesky green footprints afterwards.

When it comes to food and March 17th, there seems to be nowhere that green food colouring has not been. On www.dltk-holidays.com, under "St Patrick's Day Menu Ideas", Monique has contributed the following tale.

"My friend has a day care \ and she really gets into each holiday and makes it very special for the little ones. Green food colouring goes a long way to make a very special St Patrick's Day menu. For breakfast she will serve green milk, green eggs (or cereal with green milk) and toast with green butter. For lunch she will serve up some green macaroni and cheese, green milk and green grapes or kiwi, The kids love it!" Green beer pales into comparison with this interesting menu.

Every holiday is a potential bandwagon for anyone to hitch their horses to.

Vegans, on www.worldveganday.com, want everyone to have a happy vegan St Patrick's Day. They ask, "How about a pint of the black stuff that everyone can enjoy?" and then state, "email Guiness \, Beamish and Murphy if you would like them to stop putting fish bladders (isinglass) or gelatine into their Irish stout". (Isinglass is used in the filtration process for the vast majority of beers and wines, a Guinness spokeswoman confirmed to The Irish Times, but it's not in the end product.)

As here, it seems that any excuse for a party will do in the US. If you're looking for tips, www.tailormademysteries.com offers a section on party ideas for St Patrick's Day.

Dress code: "Encourage everyone to wear green. It can be anything from pointy felt hats and pointy shoes with the toes curled up, to evening dress and green father boas. Use face paint to paint a shamrock on everyone's cheek. Wear glowing green jewellery."

Menu suggestions: "Serve everything green - beer, cocktails, salads, cake with green icing, dyed chicken legs, peppermint icecream. Decorate your food with tiny Irish flags. Let your imagination go."

Decorations: "Outside, or just inside the door, have a large rock (the Blarney stone). Everyone can kiss this on entering. Tradition says this makes them talkative. The rock can be made out of papier maché if a large rock is difficult to find."

Party games: "Give each person paper and a pen and ask them to make up a Limerick. You may want to give them some ideas for topics like leprechauns, maidens in distress, four leaf clover, dragons etc."

Then there are the gifts. No holiday in the US is complete without a bit of honest-to-God commercialism. Log on to www.aagiftsandbaskets.com and gaze awhile on the wide range of St Patrick's Day "gift baskets and unique gifts" you can delight a friend with, ranging from Blarney Bear for $31, to Leprechaun Goodies for $78.

For $35, you get the "Top of the Day" basket, filled with "Our delicious Celtic treat! Irish whiskey cake, crunchy cashews, spicy pesto parmesan waffles, chips, a pecan log, cookies and coffee fill a wonderful wicker basket and comes complete with an Irish luck charm."

Ah, those well-known Celtic treats - pecan logs and pesto parmesan waffles!